I’m not sure what exactly it was, but sometime in the last few weeks I have gotten over my fear of kombi’s. Like I’ve stated before, they are the main form of public transportation in urban settings in this country and are the 15-passenger vans that my dad drives/we used for field trips in elementary school. Usually, they have lovely pictures on the sides (such as half naked women, American rappers like Eminem, or a ton of yellow dots? really?) and catchy names. I don’t know why exactly, because it’s not like they don’t already stand out, what with the blaring house music and the drivers shouting at you as they drive by. But my point is that I’ve decided that I actually like riding in them and not exactly knowing where I’m going makes me adventurous. Perhaps it’s because I feel comfortable in this city or that I’ve realized that I’ll probably never have quite the same sort of experience again. Plus, I figure it will make me a lot more tolerable of the CATA bus next year.

So, on Saturday I met up with two of my roommates at the shopping center just up the road from where I live because they had found a way to get to the market area downtown via public transportation. This is quite a feat because everything is word of mouth. We ended up taking a bus, but instead of getting off where we were supposed to, we took it all the way to the bus depot, where the driver tried to help us. And by helping I mean shouting to a man outside that we were tourists and needed to get to the market. Exactly how I like to start a 20 minute walk through downtown Durban on the busiest day in the city. But, we held our heads high and walked through the streets bustling with people headed every which way. We eventually made it to our destination, the Victoria Street Market, which consists of two buildings, one selling crafts and one selling fish/meat. After a few successful purchases (we passed on the baby chicks going for about $2 each, next time…) we headed back out to the street for our walk to an apparent bus stop that would take us back home. This time, we passed about a block of street vendors selling various animal parts. Bones, hides, hair of mysterious animals (or at least I hope) that serve a medicinal purpose to many locals. Can you say culture shock? And, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it either while being here, but it gets you every time.

Without any problems, we made it to the street where a bus stop was, but caught a kombi again. For us, this was quite an achievement because it is virtually impossible to get home from downtown taking a kombi. We made it fairly close to home, about a ten minute walk. But, back to my original point of wanting to take kombi’s more often. Not only are they cheap, but talk about a great way to see things. I could stare out the windows and watch people all day long. One of my favorite sightings so far is a pool table in the middle of a market place (the type of market place that sells food and white people don’t go to, for a visual). And people were playing a game in the middle of the afternoon. Also, the tables where you can use a phone to make a call are a pretty interesting sight. Not payphone style, but straight up house phone on a table. Only in Africa.